A neoconservative (also spelled "neo-conservative"; colloquially, neocon) in American politics is someone presented as a conservative but who actually favors big government, interventionalism, and a hostility to religion in politics and government. The word means "newly conservative," and thus formerly liberal. A neocon is a type of RINO, and like RINOs does not accept most of the important principles in the Republican Party platform.

Many older neocons had been liberals in their youth and admired President Franklin D. Roosevelt, while younger neocons are more economically conservative than Roosevelt but like to downplay the social issues. In 2010 the highest priority of the neoconservatives was to increase military action by the United States in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and to expand it to an American confrontation against Iran; in 2011 their goals include supporting a military attack on Libya, continuing the Afghanistan War indefinitely, and even suggesting military action against Syria. There is a revolving door between some neocons and highly paid positions in the defense industry, which may explain the constant neoconservative demands for more wars.

In the European nations of Britain and France, neoconservatives dominate right-leaning politics, but in the United States neocons are less influential than the conservative movement. For example, neocons begrudgingly supported Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee for President in 2012, even though he was not their first choice and Romney has never supported the neocon agenda.

Neoconservatives tend to oppose the appointment of social conservatives to high governmental positions, such as nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Neoconservatives support candidates who are liberal on social issues instead.

Neoconservatives favor expensive foreign interventionalism with massive federal spending, often to replace a dictator with a new system of government that may be worse. Sometimes this is expressed as a desire to install a democracy in a culture that may be incompatible with it. The neoconservative position was discredited in the failure of democracy in the Iranian elections of 2009.

On foreign policy, neoconservatives believe that democracy can and should be installed by the United States around the world, even in Muslim countries such as Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Neoconservatives were prominent in the George W. Bush administration by supporting an interventionist domestic policy they called 'compassionate conservatism' and a strong foreign policy, and especially favored the Iraq War and its efforts to spread democracy worldwide.

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Dual origins

Irving Kristol was dubbed by many as "the Godfather" of Neo-conservatism

One major strand of Neoconservatism emerged from a group of New York intellectuals, many of whom attended City College of New York in the late 1930s, a group that includes Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset and Nathan Glazer.[1] Many of this group came to despise the counterculture of the 1960s and what they felt was a growing "anti-Americanism" among many baby boomers. During the Cold War era, most vigorously opposed the Stalinist regime.[2] Kristol described a neoconservative as a "liberal mugged by reality".

Paleoconservatives, who dislike Neoconservatism intensely, have argued that it emerged from Trotskyite theories, especially the notion of permanent revolution. There are four fundamental flaws in the paleoconservatives' attack: most of the neoconservatives were never Trotskyites; none of them ever subscribed to the right-wing Socialism of Max Shachtman; the assertion that neoconservatives subscribe to "inverted Trotskyism" is misleading; and neoconservatives advocate democratic globalism, not permanent revolution.[3]

Values

Neoconservatives also tend to minimize or overlook the significance of religious beliefs in conflicts and policies, as in advocating the installation of democracy in Muslim countries with little regard for Islamic beliefs and practices.

Neoconservatives hold an idealistic belief in social progress and the universality of human rights, coupled with anti-Communism. They hold the view that there is a universal desire to live in a technologically advanced and prosperous society and liberal democracy is one of the byproducts of such modernization.

Social Issues

As Deputy Secretary of Defense 2001-4, Paul Wolfowitz was a prominent advocate of neocon foreign policy ideas in the George W. Bush administration, especially the "Bush Doctrine."

Neoconservatives positions on social issues are mixed with some holding to liberal positions on social matters, and are unlikely to agree with religious conservatives on issues like abortion, prayer in school and same-sex marriage. Other neoconservatives of the Straussian type tend to have greater degrees of agreement with religious and cultural conservatives on social issues. Neoconservatives differ from libertarians in that neoconservatives tend to support Big government policies to further their objectives, and to support Bush's 2001 Patriot act.

In anticipation of vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court, the neoconservatives urged on Bush the selection of Michael McConnell, a libertarian-leaning jurist, and J. Michael Luttig, who declared Roe v. Wade to be "super-stare decisis"[5] and later left the judiciary to become general counsel of Boeing.[6] Both were passed over in filling the vacancies and both left the judiciary entirely after missing their best chance for being appointed to the Supreme Court passed.

The term was coined by Socialist party leader Michael Harrington to describe the rightward turn of onetime liberals, and it was proudly accepted first by Irving Kristol then by most of the others.